Turner’s article, “The Significance of the Frontier in American History,” written in 1893 explained the views of the Great West and how the Frontier changed the society of America. The Frontier Line changed political views of the Great West, known as, “the existence of an area of free land.” The frontier fortified a boundary line that runs through the dense populations, and the meeting points between savagery and civilization.
Civilization entered the wilderness in the 1880s. The frontier was found in mining camps and ranches in the Great Plains. The Plymouth pilgrims settled on Indian cornfields; had lumber and beaver. River courses opened up many trades along the coast from Maine to Georgia. The Indians and England made trades; Indians were armed with guns and dependent on England while England was dominated by the trading frontier.
The article, “The Significance of the Frontier in American History,” dealt with a lot of trading and the spread of civilization throughout the countries with different types of race and cultures.
You May Also Find These Documents Helpful
-
Throughout the entirety of the history of our nation, there have been a multitude of factors that widely contributed to the success of America. Many have argued that the Frontier was the vital element, while ours may argue that immigration was the key to success. Immigration in the 19th century was imperative as immigrants from Germany, England, and Ireland became prevalent in our country. The Frontier was a thesis based on the opinions of Frederick Jackson Turner in the 1890s, who stated that the biased idea of expansion westward would provide opportunities to citizens. During the 1800s, immigration was the preeminent factor of America’s success that shaped the overall way we live today due to the influence on industrial growth and the impact…
- 803 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays -
The American West was viewed as a land of opportunity and success for many people of different racial and financial backgrounds during the time between 1865 to 1890. However, the extent of success from the opportunity varied on multiple factors. For the homesteader, opportunity was based upon good weather conditions and hard work but mostly only large scale corporations succeeded. Mining provided little for the average miner; large mining industries profited instead.. At some point West was the land of opportunity and at the same time it was not a land of opportunity for Native American Indians and Minorities.…
- 366 Words
- 2 Pages
Good Essays -
In 1845 the pioneers on the western frontier prepared to open a wagon rout to the Pacific coast. They found out that they were on of the chosen few to go on the expedition. George Donner and his brother then decided, after careful consideration, to accept the invitation to join the westward migration. George deeded some of his land to each of his grown children, while keeping 110 acres for his younger children in case they wanted to return to their home state. On May 11th they arrived at Missouri. Then the Colonel Russell's California Company promised to wait for Boon and his family on the Kansas…
- 113 Words
- 1 Page
Satisfactory Essays -
According to Turner, the hardships required to perpetuate social evolution along the frontier had shaped the political process in America at the time. His theory, being from a Westerner’s perspective, did not receive much acknowledgment at the time. However, many thinkers of this era were of a post Darwinism understanding. Political and socioeconomic evolutions are due in part to the settler mindset that is deeply instilled into the western frontier of America. To Turner, America imposes a Composite nationality. The people who inhabited the frontier early on were primarily servants. This promoted a population of people from various cultures around the world. Not only did this promote individualism, but it also allowed communities to redefine themselves and become something new. Turner believes that it is from here, and not European influence, that we found our economic and political voice as a nation.…
- 487 Words
- 2 Pages
Good Essays -
In the book Frontier Cities, Encounters at the Crossroads of Empire, the authors debate the myriad ways in which cities, in the United States, and worldwide, functioned as crossroads of Empires. This book utilizes other sources, such as Richard C. Wade’s The Urban Frontier: The Rise of Western Cities, 1790–1830 (Urbana, 1959), to posit that cities were central to the formation of frontiers. The book also theorizes that frontier cities were the beginning of civilization, in an area, and not merely the end result.…
- 751 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays -
Throughout the first half of the nineteenth century, many Americans considered the lands west of the Mississippi as the "Great American Desert" and unfit for civilization. However, by the mid-1840s, migrants from the eastern United States transformed this vast desert into a fruitful land awaiting settlement and civilization known as the frontier. The development of the frontier was the result of the mass population of the many different regions of the far West. These regions were diverse in climate as well as in natural resources and, as a result, attracted different types of settlers (Doc I). The wide-ranging natural landscape of the far West offered promising lifestyles to those who chose the occupations of farmers,…
- 867 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays -
The article I chose to critique was Women's Role in the American West by T. A. Larson. One main argument presented was that women’s roles in the West were often ignored in most writings during the late 1800’s. Larson stated that women of the West were treated as if they were of small significance, judging by the little attention they received from historians. Such examples of this were shown throughout the article from sources such as John A. Hawgood's America's Western Frontier, LeRoy R. Hafen and Carl Coke Rister’s edition of Western America (2nd ed., 1950), and Jackson Turner’s famous essay “The Significance of the Frontier in American History.” These historians devoted very little attention to women in their writings, usually only one…
- 376 Words
- 2 Pages
Good Essays -
Turner Thesis is a significant article that was presented in 1893 to inform why the American frontier is important to the development of American history. Frederick Jackson Turner, point of view on America, is that the U.S. is exceptional from other countries due to the fact of westward expansion. For example, he believes the frontier gave new opportunities for the U.S. to improved and become more superior, as a result of the manifest destiny and American settlers restarting from the beginning. In addition, he implies that the free land, cause Americans to evolve and adapt to the new environment, and therefore a better democracy, individualism, civilized, and society was formed. He states that expanding to the west, American settlers became…
- 129 Words
- 1 Page
Satisfactory Essays -
Turner’s thesis discussed the significance of the frontier and how it embodied what America was all about at the time; he argued that the frontier brought out raw survival instincts and embellished nationalism, independence, and democracy. Turner’s new viewpoint was revolutionary for its time because most historians thought with an Atlantic Coast bias, believing that the East, especially New England, was the true heart of American culture and that that culture traced back to English political institutions. Turner, a rural Wisconsin native, had been unaffected by this general bias and strongly believed that the narrow perspective of 19th century Eastern-American historians neglected the broader contours of social, cultural, and economic history that had shaped American…
- 2324 Words
- 10 Pages
Powerful Essays -
America first took a step towards greater world involvement due to 1. The effects of the frontier on the American spirit. In 1893 Fredrick Jackson Turner delivered the idea of "The Significance of the Frontier in American History," to a gathering of historians. According to Turner, the frontier was "the line of most rapid Americanization."1 The idea of the frontier as explained by Turner looks at the constant movement westward by the European's who came to America. It speaks of the time from the first arrival until the time when there is no longer a frontier line, and how the nation developed as the movement westward continued. "Little by little he transforms the wilderness, but the outcome is not the old Europe, not simply the development of Germanic germs, any more than the first phenomenon was a case of reversion to the Germanic mark. The fact is, that here is a new product that is American. At first, the frontier was the Atlantic coast. It was the frontier of Europe in a very real sense. Moving westward, the frontier became more and more American."2 As the Americans ventured westward each new move past a frontier was developed on trials of the one before it. Whereas most of the time expansion would be met by other people whom have conquered that land, this was not the case for America, which provided it with a unique opportunity. It was then brought back to the primitive stage as each frontier was advanced upon, giving rise to new forms of government and institutions. The…
- 1173 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
* Explain how three of the following influenced the development of the ‘last West’ from the 1850s to 1900. [Miners, cattlemen, farmers, immigrant cities]…
- 815 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays -
The western frontier is full of many experiences that changed the frontier. Each significant event has an important role on the shaping of society and way it influenced a new nation. Each author brought a new perspective and thought process to the western experience which either contradicted Turner or supported his theories. The frontier ideas that interested me include topics such as trading frontier, farming frontier, nationality and government, and the neglecting of women.…
- 1050 Words
- 5 Pages
Good Essays -
west to be an empty wilderness. And in less than fifty years, from the 1803…
- 2167 Words
- 9 Pages
Powerful Essays -
England, a small and familiar place for many, was a community with very strict rules and beliefs. The Church of England was the dominant power over the country, and not everyone was happy with this dictatorship. Once the land in America was founded, Puritans and other men searching for freedom gathered and sailed across the sea to the new land. America became a “melting pot” full of various traditions, cultures, and beliefs from England as well as new “American” ideas. This process took time and involved adapting and hard work to civilize the land. In 1893, Frederick Jackson Turner discussed and wrote about the frontier and how it shaped American characteristics. He talked about the steps the Europeans had to take to transform the environment into one with reasonable laws and into one with more of a community rather than mere wilderness. “As successive terminal moraines result from successive glaciations, so each frontier leaves its traces behind it, and when it becomes a settled area the region still partakes of the frontier characteristics. (Turner 153)”1This quote talks about the frontier having characteristics from the old country, England, as well as new developed ones from America. Turner’s argument is based off the European men arriving in American and having to adapt to the Indian lifestyle which consisted of hunting and of living off the land. Later the Europeans introduced their own more civilized ideas to further the society and build up the area as a whole. Turner only talked about the male figures shaping America and completely disregarded women and their roles in the community. Although Turner’s “frontier thesis” involving males shaping America became a very prominent idea, Elizabeth Ashbridge and Mary Rowlandson, two women, wrote about their completely different experiences. Elizabeth Ashbridge and Mary Rowlandson both represent victims of slavery and viewed the frontier as a place of fear, confusion,…
- 1424 Words
- 6 Pages
Powerful Essays -
It was ironic that the yuppies came to be so reviled for their vaunting ambition…
- 444 Words
- 2 Pages
Good Essays